Most Liberal County in the country

[Sol]

Not necessarily most Democratic.

Travis County, TX, Dane County, WI and the Bay Area counties probably are the big contenders.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Windham, VT
Berkshire, MA
Dukes, MA
Kings, NY
Montgomery, MD
Orange, NC
Dane, WI
Washtenaw, MI
Athens, OH
Boulder, CO
Pitkin, CO
Blaine, ID
San Juan, WA
King, WA
Multnomah, OR
Lane, OR
San Francisco, CA
San Mateo, CA
Santa Cruz, CA
Santa Clara, CA
Alameda, CA
Marin, CA
Sonoma, CA
Mendocino, CA
Humboldt, CA

Among others.

[traininthedistance]

Windham, VT
Berkshire, MA
Dukes, MA
Kings, NY
Montgomery, MD
Orange, NC
Dane, WI
Washtenaw, MI
Athens, OH
Boulder, CO
Pitkin, CO
Blaine, ID
San Juan, WA
King, WA
Multnomah, OR
Lane, OR
San Francisco, CA
San Mateo, CA
Santa Cruz, CA
Santa Clara, CA
Alameda, CA
Marin, CA
Sonoma, CA
Mendocino, CA
Humboldt, CA

Among others.

Eh, Kings doesn't quite belong here; Manhattan and the Bronx are both a good deal more liberal.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

San Francisco County, CA... and I'm not even sure anyone else comes close.

[krazen1211]

How on earth would anyone put Travis County on here?

[HoosierPoliticalJunkie]

San Francisco County, CA... and I'm not even sure anyone else comes close.

Agreed.  There aren't many places where a naked fun run is considered socially acceptable.

[Indy Texas]

Travis County?! It's liberal by Texan standards but has plenty of Republican-leaning suburbs and isn't monolithically Democratic. Hell, Bush carried the county in 2000 and I think Kay Bailey Hutchison usually did in her Senate runs.

[King of Kensington]

Eh, Kings doesn't quite belong here; Manhattan and the Bronx are both a good deal more liberal.

Hasidic Jews and Russians.

[traininthedistance]

Eh, Kings doesn't quite belong here; Manhattan and the Bronx are both a good deal more liberal.

Hasidic Jews and Russians.

Yes, but not *just* them.  You've got historically conservative Italian places like Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights, and Bay Ridge (Bay Ridge is not so conservative anymore, but even 65% Obama precincts are going to be conservative by NYC standards).  And certainly large swaths of the African-American population are going to be more partisan Democrat than culturally liberal.

[they don't love you like i love you]

This is why I wish Minneapolis was an independent city or a San Francisco/Philadelphia-style city/county, we get stuck with some awful conservative areas in Hennepin County. At least make it just Minneapolis plus the surrounding areas, say Brooklyn Center, Robbinsdale, New Hope, Crystal, Golden Valley, St. Louis Park, Hopkins, St. Anthony and Richfield is Hennepin County, the rest of it can become the new county of Minnetonka. Eh I guess for this to work we'd have to take Edina and Bloomington too.

FWIW my Hennepin County (including Edina and Bloomington), voted 71.2% for Obama in 2008. Minnetonka County voted only 50.8% for Obama.

[Kitteh]

People here need to realize that the Castro/Haight/Mission District area is only a part of San Francisco. There are plenty of areas that are more conservative (though still liberal by national standards), with mainly yuppies and Asians (many of whom are culturally conservative in an interesting way even if strongly Democrat). Those happen to be the areas that tourists and people from out of town typically don't see because there's nothing interesting there, which is part of why San Fran has such an uber-liberal reputation. But honestly, it probably isn't even the most liberal in California, I'd rank Humboldt, Mendocino and Santa Cruz as more liberal.

I think the answer is probably one of the smaller/ruralish counties. I'd imagine somewhere in Vermont or Western Mass.  Any of those places Matt Gonzales would have creamed Gavin Newsom, for example.

Berkshire, MA would be my best guess.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

The thing is, Berkshire has some old mill towns and associated post-industrial working-class decay in addition to the yuppies and artists. It's still very liberal, obviously, but I would wager that Hampshire (Amherst; Northampton) is more so. Possibly Franklin, too, although some of what's true of Berkshire is also true of Franklin, particularly east of the Connecticut River.

[Хahar 🤔]

Marin is certainly the most liberal suburban county in the country.

[Kitteh]

The thing is, Berkshire has some old mill towns and associated post-industrial working-class decay in addition to the yuppies and artists. It's still very liberal, obviously, but I would wager that Hampshire (Amherst; Northampton) is more so. Possibly Franklin, too, although some of what's true of Berkshire is also true of Franklin, particularly east of the Connecticut River.

Fair enough, I don't really know much about Western MA (certainly less than you).

[Bandit3 the Worker]

This is why I wish Minneapolis was an independent city or a San Francisco/Philadelphia-style city/county, we get stuck with some awful conservative areas in Hennepin County. At least make it just Minneapolis plus the surrounding areas, say Brooklyn Center, Robbinsdale, New Hope, Crystal, Golden Valley, St. Louis Park, Hopkins, St. Anthony and Richfield is Hennepin County, the rest of it can become the new county of Minnetonka. Eh I guess for this to work we'd have to take Edina and Bloomington too.

FWIW my Hennepin County (including Edina and Bloomington), voted 71.2% for Obama in 2008. Minnetonka County voted only 50.8% for Obama.

It sounds like Hennepin County has Campbell County Syndrome.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Also, San Francisco should be disqualified from this list for its war against the homeless and for fingerprinting welfare recipients.

[bgwah]

I vote SF. Being a consolidated city-county helps a lot, as BRTD mentioned.

Manhattan is up there but I still view it as being more business-friendly and capitalist than SF.

DC might replace SF soon. While it is being gentrified with more whites, they seem to be of the ultra-liberal urban variety whites seen in SF/Sea/NYC. Furthermore, most of them are dependent on government jobs and spending one way or another.

[TJ in Oregon]

San Francisco County, CA... and I'm not even sure anyone else comes close.

Agreed.  There aren't many places where a naked fun run is considered socially acceptable.

Nope in Dane County, WI we have a naked bike ride instead. Much more conservative

Dane is certainly up there on the list and quite likely the most liberal county in the Midwest, but I imagine it's not on a San Francisco level (admittedly never having been to SF). Unlike San Fran, Dane County does contain some rural areas and farms, that while the people living there are fairly liberal, it doesn't really measure up to an all-urban county. Madison itself could compete for it though. After all, where else would Romney's third best precinct be the dorms on a state school campus?

More than anything else, I think Madison's liberalism stems from an identity rather than an issue or set of issues. Most of the liberals I encounter here don't really understand what liberalism is or what that means beyond voting for Democrats because Scott Walker is actually Satan wearing a costume.    

Comparing Madison to Cleveland Heights (my previous home) is interesting to me in some ways because both are considered liberal/progressive bastions for their areas but it manifests in different ways. Cleveland Heights is much more interested in world peace and environmentalism from my experience than Madison is. Unlike Cleveland Heights, Madison isn't a nuclear free zone, whereas Cleveland Heights's signs when you enter the city look like this:

On the other hand, Madison is much further left when it comes to marijuana and abortion. No one would ever consider putting a "We Support Planned Parenthood" lawn sign in their yard in Cleveland Heights like I've seen in Madison. While most of Cleveland Heights almost certainly does support abortion, people aren't quite as...direct... about it. Madison also has a fetish for "diversity" which is amusing because Madison doesn't have much. While Cleveland Heights has a large minority population, "diversity" simply exists without much discussion, whereas in Madison "diversity" is viewed and approached as though it's a far off-idea encountered only in a textbook. It's kind of strange.

[they don't love you like i love you]

No one would ever consider putting a "We Support Planned Parenthood" lawn sign in their yard in Cleveland Heights like I've seen in Madison.

That's...strange. Even in Minneapolis you wouldn't see something like that.

[Linus Van Pelt]

Those signs were in response to a particular state law cutting all funding for Planned Parenthood, even for non-abortion health services.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Those signs were in response to a particular state law cutting all funding for Planned Parenthood, even for non-abortion health services.

Ah makes more sense. Kind of like how we have plenty of signs in support of gay marriage (even this far after the election.)

[Antonio the Sixth]

San Francisco County, CA... and I'm not even sure anyone else comes close.

[TDAS04]

San Juan County, WA, is certainly a contender for most liberal rural county (at least outside of Vermont).  It is made up of the San Juan Islands, and it voted in favor of gay marriage with 71% approval, which was even higher than King County (67%). 

[Gass3268]

San Francisco County, CA... and I'm not even sure anyone else comes close.

Agreed.  There aren't many places where a naked fun run is considered socially acceptable.

Nope in Dane County, WI we have a naked bike ride instead. Much more conservative

Dane is certainly up there on the list and quite likely the most liberal county in the Midwest, but I imagine it's not on a San Francisco level (admittedly never having been to SF). Unlike San Fran, Dane County does contain some rural areas and farms, that while the people living there are fairly liberal, it doesn't really measure up to an all-urban county. Madison itself could compete for it though. After all, where else would Romney's third best precinct be the dorms on a state school campus?

More than anything else, I think Madison's liberalism stems from an identity rather than an issue or set of issues. Most of the liberals I encounter here don't really understand what liberalism is or what that means beyond voting for Democrats because Scott Walker is actually Satan wearing a costume.    

Comparing Madison to Cleveland Heights (my previous home) is interesting to me in some ways because both are considered liberal/progressive bastions for their areas but it manifests in different ways. Cleveland Heights is much more interested in world peace and environmentalism from my experience than Madison is. Unlike Cleveland Heights, Madison isn't a nuclear free zone, whereas Cleveland Heights's signs when you enter the city look like this:

On the other hand, Madison is much further left when it comes to marijuana and abortion. No one would ever consider putting a "We Support Planned Parenthood" lawn sign in their yard in Cleveland Heights like I've seen in Madison. While most of Cleveland Heights almost certainly does support abortion, people aren't quite as...direct... about it. Madison also has a fetish for "diversity" which is amusing because Madison doesn't have much. While Cleveland Heights has a large minority population, "diversity" simply exists without much discussion, whereas in Madison "diversity" is viewed and approached as though it's a far off-idea encountered only in a textbook. It's kind of strange.

As someone who's lived in Dane County for almost 24 years, this is pretty accurate. If you are looking for the most liberal county that has a mix of urban, suburban and rural areas, Dane County would have to be close to the top.   

[All Along The Watchtower]

Montgomery County, Maryland is very liberal.